


Untitled

by arianrhod



Category: Political Animals
Genre: Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-18
Updated: 2014-12-18
Packaged: 2018-03-02 02:08:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,703
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2795813
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/arianrhod/pseuds/arianrhod
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>TJ gets a job. Recovery will be what recovery will be.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Untitled

**Author's Note:**

  * For [misslucyjane](https://archiveofourown.org/users/misslucyjane/gifts).



> Helloo dear prompter. I hope you like this. There is a little more angst than 0 but I hope the payoff is in realizing that happiness and solid foundations can grow in spite of this. Hooray! I had so much fun with writing this! Happy yuletide!
> 
> Warning: language, since TJs internal voice apparently swears a lot in my world. also, description of panic attack and depersonalization/derealization episode.
> 
> Ice applied to cheeks, forehead, neck, and back can be extremely helpful in aborting an acute panic attack (for real, as effective if not more than medication) but as always, please please please seek the help of a medical professional if you are struggling with these issues.

From where he's sitting on the couch hiding under the fluffiest comforter in Dougie's apartment, TJ can still hear his brother's protests from the direction of the bedroom. He is pretending not to listen though; after moving into Anne and Dougie's apartment--or more accurately, onto their couch--in the ongoing housing shuffle that was preceding their mother's move to the White House, he has made a more or less solemn vow not to get involved in family fights, disagreements, or general shenanigans. 

Nonetheless-- "TJ, tell Anne that I can absolutely wear my gray suit to the inauguration," Doug shouts down the hallway. This followed by the vague sounds of hangers shuffling and a few muffled thumps.

"TJ, tell Doug that people will notice that he has worn this suit to _every political function since Labor Day._ " Anne is in the living room with him now, sounding breathless. TJ hazards a peak out of the side of his blanket sanctuary. She is holding the offending suit, looking both triumphant and fending off Dougie by flicking him with the tie in her other hand. 

"TJ, tell her that no one will notice."

"TJ, tell her that people are literally paid to notice what we are wearing on inauguration day."

TJ and his comforter flop over with a groan. Two person sized lumps are visibly blocking the light through the blanket above him.

"Fine," he sighs. "Dougie, if you wear that suit again, Anne and I will disown you and elope to Grandpa Hammond's farm." Another tentative peak outside the blanket reveals two smiling faces, Anne having Doug currently lassoed about the neck with the tie. They're both grinning at him as if his surliness is some sort of rewared. TJ groans again and attempts to burrow deeper into the couch.

He would have hidden in the insulated warmth forever if his traitor of a twin brother weren't steadily picking the blanket off of him.

"What?" he yells once Doug extracts him. Strike one for avoiding shenanigans. Doug plops down on top of TJ and holds onto the edge of the blanket that TJ is slowly inching over his face again.

"It's too late for that, TJ. We already eloped and you were too late to join."

"As if I'd want to be married to the power couple of politics and wallpaper or whatever the hell your wife does."

"Hey!" come from the weight that sits down on his legs. "Do you even know what an interior designer does?"

"Speaking of wallpaper though," Dougie says, with the sourpuss getting-down-to-business-face that has always resulted in TJ working overtime at the lemonade stand when they were seven. "We found a job for you."

TJ contemplates running away at that moment; he's no athlete but with the element of surprise and long practice he could probably make it out the bedroom window before they could catch him.

Alas, seems that Doug knows that expression on his face just as well. A small hand closes around his ankle. "Come on, TJ," Anne says, massaging the top of his foot a little. "I can actually guarantee it will be fun." 

TJ groans and finally wins the blanket back from Doug, reburying himself immediately.

Doug pokes him anyway. "It's Mom and Dad approved," he cajoles.

"You would make your grandmother proud," Anne adds.

TJ attempts to kick them both, but he doesn't have the upper hand anymore.  
___

“Uh, I brought you this latte?” TJ says. He is currently sweating so much his gray blazer is probably at least in the charcoal range. His hair is drooping too and probably not in the attractive way he usually relies on. Anne doesn’t seem to notice though. 

“It’s sweet of you to give me your latte, TJ, but you don’t have to. I do like my morning coffee though.” She smiles at him as she grabs the latte from his hand and sets it on her desk. “Let’s try for tomorrow morning, okay?”

TJ smiles back at her and tries to surreptitiously wipe the sweat off his palms on his pant legs. Her office is a small but sleekly designed two room space in a small converted house that she shares with a few other business TJ didn’t care to investigate further as he slunk in late. Barely late. Like five minutes, give or take a twenty minutes stop for the latte. The how-to website he’d read last night had been pretty specific about how assistants should be on time.

“TJ!” Anne says, waving her hand a little under his nose. She must have noticed the drooping then. “It’s okay, seriously. It’s your first day, which means settling in and I tell you what to do and then we take a long lunch to resupply on the coffee and gossip about other interior designers and their assistants.” She is still smiling at him, honestly he hasn’t seen her show this much enthusiasm for anything else which probably says something about how much she enjoys family dinners. But she also gestures helpfully at a structure that is like a pod perched on top of a pile of angled metal poles that turns out to be an inexplicably comfortable chair, appointed to its own desk and laptop that turn out to just as inexplicably be meant for TJ.

“What’s happening right now?” He asks, concerned that he’s missing out on a key point of the plot where Anne yells at him for being a terrible assistant on his first day because he didn’t know what coffee she liked and couldn’t even identify a chair in her own office. Really, if she would just tell him that he’s doing a terrible job, he’d feel much more comfortable with this whole job thing, and then he could get fired, go home, and let people be disappointed with him and all would be right with the world.

“Honestly, TJ? I love my job but being self-employed is boring and lonely and I know for a fact that you dress your entire family and compulsively rearrange your grandmother’s sitting room depending on the season.” Anne is looking at him solemnly now, and she’s obviously been drinking the latte too. Ha.

“And because of this you’re going to hire me and trust me not to break all your tile samples or do cocaine in the bathroom?” Anne smiles at him again, like she’s trying to smile with him and not at him, not at all the fond but-TJ-is-so-helpless smile that he usually gets from, well, everyone. And at this point, he might as well sink through her expensive pseudo-chair and right through the floor. Anne is probably the one person he hasn’t disappointed, the one person in this whole stupid family or maybe in the whole United States, and maybe he just realized that was because she had no expectations of him. But if he actually does this thing as her assistant, which had seemed like every other family-acquired pity job he’d ever made a show of holding down for a couple days, he might--

“Jesus, TJ. You’re not going to do cocaine in the bathroom. If only because there’s a creepy chiropractor in the next office over who’d probably offer to crack your spine to cure your addiction. I recommend you avoid him. And we’ll work you up to tile samples, okay? How about more coffee first? Come on, I’ll show you how to use the Keurig.” Anne squeezes his shoulder and glides past. Just a little pressure, but TJ feels something uncurl inside him that had been wrapped uncomfortably tight around his throat. Coffee does sound good.

___

"I can't _fucking do this_. Mrs. I'm-banging-a-Senator has already called me four times about the color of the goddamn backsplash!" TJ shouts, and for emphasis slams the bag he's carrying to the floor next to his desk. There is a telltale ceramic-sounding shatter and Anne jumps. Her eyes are big and she looks a little scared and that obliterates TJ's righteous anger like the world's coldest shower. Now he has that rotten feeling in his stomach that makes him feel so _fucking Jesus am I crying_ \--

"TJ, can you hear me? How about we sit down?" Anne's voice sort of swims towards him through what he can now feel are actual goddamn tear. Her hand is gently on his which is about the time he realizes he's shaking. Fuck, fuck, fuck. He is the fucking _worst mess_ \--

"TJ, please say something. I'm calling Doug, okay?" Anne is crouching in front of him now, one hand over both of his which appear to be wringing themselves of their own accord. He doesn't feel like he's doing it, or really doing anything at all. But he can feel it happening, powerless to stop his unraveling and hyperventilating and crying and _fuck_. The only thing that is clear is that voice says helpful shit like "You're going to lose this goddamn pity job that you like" and "only one month in that studio apartment you're paying for on your own for once, look how long that lasted" and his favorite, "well, all of this makes sense since you were never worth anything anyway." He might be shaking his head but it's true, true, true. He feels like he's finally going crazy. He feels, no, he knows he's dying.

Ice cold floods his body from head down, and he takes a deep breath, maybe his first deep breath in forever. He opens his eyes, for real this time, and looks at Ann, who has ice cubes in her hands and is pressing them to his cheeks. His face is damp and water is running down her hands and up her sleeves, but her eyes are on him, her cellphone discarded next to her water bottle from home, open on the floor by her knees.

"You back with me?" She doesn't pull away, so he puts his hands over hers and draws them down to his lap. They are cold from holding the ice. He plucks the cubes out of her hands and stares at them, feeling nothing at all.

Anne senses the question. "Ice on the forehead and cheeks can stop a panic attack. Have you ever had a panic attack before, TJ?"

He chuffs a laugh. "Yeah, sometimes. Mostly, you know, early on." She doesn't ask whether he means early on in life, or in the White House, or in his drug addiction, or what. "They won't give me drugs for it any more. Addicting, you know, always some shit or another."

Ann nods, serious. Tentatively, TJ raises his hands to his neck, pressing the slippery remains of ice cubs to his chest. Maybe it's all in his head, but jesus he can finally think in a straight line. And see clearly. And what he sees, now that he's even looking, is his brother's wife in front of him, having pretty much saved his life and let cold water run down her sleeves without even complaining a little bit. She meets his gaze steadily. She knows.

"You, too?" TJ says, and his voice feels breathless. Not his own.

She nods. "Me, too. You think I married into the Hammond family without having a therapist first. I think it was specified in the prenup."

"Dougie asked you for a prenup?" He echoes, a little stronger.

"No, TJ, we eloped, remember? Trust me, we are smart but not that smart." She smiles at him and pats his knee.

"Oh," he says. "Sorry?"

"Hey, don't worry about anything. Douglas will be here in fifteen minutes, give or take traffic. Why don't you go lie down on the couch until then, okay?"

"Okay," he says, and tries to echo her smile too. Fails. She stands up and brushes off her impeccable and unwrinkled skirt, and guides him gently to the couch. They'd picked it out for the office a few weeks ago during a not-so-spur-of-the-moment antiquing trip that they had refused to be embarrassed by. The plus, TJ reflects extraneously, is that it looks, feels, and functions like one might expect from a couch. It's comfy. It's normal. Perfect place to lay down and feel vaguely nauseous until his twin brother shows up to help him call his sponsor and take him to see his therapist.

But.

He opens his eyes. Ann is sitting on the arm of the couch, not touching him or even looking at him, but TJ feels safe nonetheless.

"Are you going to fire me? I broke the tile samples." He feels pretty small, looking up at her.

"No, TJ," she says.

“You only hired me because I’m the family fuck-up.”

“No, TJ,” she says, “I hired you because you’re family.”

"Ok," he says. "I'll try." He closes his eyes again, and waits.

\----

 

"Seriously, we're redoing the entire counter just to put in an undermount sink? Okay, fine, well, her money, right? I'll see you tomorrow, Annie. Yeah, say hi for me."

TJ is just about to hang up his phone as the door swings open and he becomes momentarily distracted by the _lack of any freaking walls_.

"Holy shit," he says, gaping at what was going to be a fully decorated living room in a couple days that is currently just bare studs.

"Yeah, I'd have to agree." A man pops out of thin air to scare TJ out of his mind. He probably doesn't flinch too hard. Just a little, right? Because this guy is incredibly, terribly attractive. And TJ should know. He's a good judge of that sort of thing.

"Who the hell are you?" TJ says. Not so cool then. Fuck.

"Sorry. I'm Michael, the contractor? I had to come in at an ungodly hour this morning, seriously you don't even know, because the clients wanted the walls taken out. It's all about open concept now, so they told me." He smiles, which goes well with his amazing bone structure, minimal stubble, and just-long-enough-to-be-swept-back dirty blond hair. Oh, fuck.

"Nice to meet you, Michael. TJ. I work for Anne Ogami. Ah, I mean, Hammond. I’m TJ Hammond. Fuck.” Shit, he swore in front of this nice, hot man. “Uh, you might have heard of me.” Oh god. There must be a ditch around somewhere. He can just leave now and throw himself in immediately.

But Michael laughs, and has the balls to keep smiling at him a little fondly. “Yes, TJ, I know who you are. You’re Anne’s hot assistant I keep hearing about, right? Up and coming interior designer in his own right, I heard.” He sticks out a hand, which TJ stares at.

Oh. “Uh, right. Anne’s assitsant. That’s me.” And he shakes the hand, which is of course strong and soft and warm. He’s going to have to swoon right now or run away. But Michael holds on to the handshake just a moment longer. “Sorry, awkward question, but I’ve kinda. Been through a lot? So if you could just tell me. Is this a situation --- sorry, I’m wondering, you, are you?” TJ is actually, for real, spluttering. If there were a toilet hooked up to the plumbing in this house, he might entertain the idea of pretending to need the bathroom.

“Yes, TJ, I’m hitting on you. I didn’t think it would go like this though. You are very cute. I might even date you. What do you think?”

“Uh, hum.” TJ says, unable to keep his mouth closed like a regular person.. So of course, instead of replying calmly in the affirmative, he says “I’ve been sober for a year.” 

“Hey, awesome. That’s really great,” Michael says, and looks like he means it. “I pretty much take things slow, and now that I’m removing all the walls in this place, we’ll have plenty of time to blow these people’s renovation budget while getting to know each other. Sound good.”

“Yes,” TJ says, or possibly shouts. He can’t be sure. But later that day, after TJ realizes he spent more than a few hours standing in the half undone, half redone kitchen talking granite or quartz for counters and the merits of adding an accent wall in the dining room and that’s it. It’s good.


End file.
